


Hum Hallelujah (Murphy's Law)

by theswearingkind



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-03
Updated: 2007-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2141610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If something can go wrong, it will.  </p>
            </blockquote>





	Hum Hallelujah (Murphy's Law)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Big Damn Table prompt #65, passing.

You are in the dining hall when the call comes.  It’s kind of late for dinner, but everyone’s still there, the first night back from Spring Break sort of a tradition among you and yours.  

You have to move away from your table to get reception.  You throw up after you hear it, so that’s probably a good thing. 

*

_“Hello?”_

_“J-Jason?”_

_“Uh, yeah, who’s this?”_

_“It’s P-Peter’s mother, Jason, I—oh, God, Jason, it’s Peter, it’s Peter.”_

*

It takes you a few tries to get the words out.  It sounds messy in your ears, a jumble of _car crash_ and _Peter_ and _couldn’t stop_ and _oh God oh God_ , but Ivy screams and Matt drops his fork and Nadia for once has nothing to say, so they probably get the idea. 

*

_“Wait, what?  Mrs. Simmonds?  What’s wrong?  What happened?  Are you—is Peter okay?”_

_“He—he was driving back to school and someone…a car stalled and he had to swerve to miss it and his car went into the other lane, and Peter, Peter—”_

_“Mrs. Simmonds, he’s okay, though, right?  He’s okay, right?”_

_“His car got—got hit, Jason, hard, and Peter.  Peter.”_

*

Your bed still smells like him.  You go to the funeral and see the casket, with its curved, closed lid, and you very nearly come to blows with your father, who showed up for no good reason you can think of, and who tells you not unkindly that he knows the boy was your roommate, but that’s no reason not to show some dignity, and when you say that he wasn’t just your roommate, okay, he was your best friend, Jesus, dad, are you blind, he wasn’t just my roommate, he was my lov—then he slaps you, hard, in the back of the sanctuary, and tells you to keep your mouth shut, and the coffin disappears into the ground, and all of that and your bed still smells like the last time. 

*

_“He’s okay.  He’s okay, right?  He’s in the hospital or something but he’s going to be okay, right?”_

_“Jason, it was an—an eighteen-wheeler, it couldn’t stop, and his car just—it got crushed, Jason, it got crushed—”_

*

Here is what you will remember for the rest of your life: Peter looking up at you from the floor, cradling his arm, eyes wide and hurt and angry in a bloodless face.

*

_“Mrs. Simmonds—tell me, is Peter okay?  He’s—he’s okay, right?  He’s beat-up but he’s going to be fine?”_

_“Jason, he’s—he’s, oh God.  He’s dead.”  
_


End file.
